A bomb took his leg, but not his will: Army veteran presses ahead in Mini-Marathon

MILROY – Jacob Lyerla was never an athlete. He was a self-described “terrible” student.

He wanted out of this village of about 700, so he enlisted in the Army. At 19, he was wounded in an explosion, paralyzed from the waist down, left without part of one leg, scarred on his elbow and face, and with traumatic brain injury.

Now what?

Race the OneAmerica 500 Festival Mini-Marathon. In a wheelchair. Racing chairs are as streamlined as a bicycle or IndyCar, but Lyerla uses a conventional wheelchair that is harder to maneuver.

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Jacob and Ashley Lyerla at their Milroy home.(Photo: David Woods/IndyStar)

You say no one else does that? You would be right. He was the only Mini participant to do so a year ago. He will be on the starting line again Saturday for the 13.1-mile race through Indianapolis.

“I’ve got more determination than smarts,” said Lyerla, 29.

Here’s the thing about determination: It is rare. It is eloquent. It is how he became influential in Rush County.

Lyerla, born in Michigan City, moved with his family to Milroy from Mancelona, Michigan, before his freshman year at Rushville High School. There is an Amish community here with farmland and pastures all around. He said he was never happy about relocating, did not participate in school activities and joined the Army in 2008.

After basic training, he reported to Fort Carson, Colorado, where he was a combat engineer with the 4th Engineer Battalion. He was deployed to Iraq in February 2009, then to Afghanistan that May. On Sept. 21, 2009, Lyerla was thrown from the turret of his vehicle by an improvised explosive device (IED) during an enemy attack in Kandahar. He said one soldier in the vehicle died, another had his legs shattered, and a sergeant was injured.

“I’m not complaining at all. Better than being dead, that’s for sure,” he said.

He said he used to be a “mean, angry person.” Oddly, he said, the brain injury changed his personality.

“I don’t get upset for very long any more,” he said. “I can just let stuff go. I’m able to keep on keeping on, having fun.”

Jacob Lyerla in last year's Mini-Marathon.(Photo: Courtesy of the 500 Festival)

His wife, Ashley, said the explosion affected his short-term memory.

They met after he moved back to Milroy, deciding this place wasn’t so bad after all. He found the former Ashley Ratliff, a Connersville native, through the PlentyOfFish online dating service. They wed two years ago and share their home with eight dogs. They have been hosts to two foreign exchange students from Thailand and are awaiting a third.

The house, on the eastern edge of Milroy along State Road 244, was donated by Homes For Our Troops, a nonprofit that builds especially adapted homes for veterans.

“I can cook. I can clean. I can do anything,” said Lyerla, who has his driver’s license.

His former trainer wanted to run the Mini in honor of his late brother. So Lyerla decided to tackle it, too, in 2016. It took him 3 hours, 17 minutes, 52 seconds – or 15:05 per mile.

Lyerla has a new trainer, Ben Badgley, 45, at Anytime Fitness in Rushville. Lyerla said he was going to race the Mini again, so Badgley ran the course with him. Lyerla finished last year in 2:32:21, or 11:37 a mile.

He did the pre-Mini 10-mile race at an 11:21 pace. So he knows he is ready.

“We’re going under 2:30, for sure,” he said.

Lyerla and Badgley go up and down Rushville’s Main Street, traveling 5-kilometer routes there and on roads elsewhere. Badgley said people stop him regularly, recognizing him from those runs.

The trainer said it has been a challenge to coach Lyerla, whose training not only affects arms and shoulders but also his back. It is “extremely difficult” to push a wheelchair, said Badgley, who has put himself in one to simulate what Lyerla endures. Lyerla is unable to fold his legs into the racing chairs.

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Jacob and Ashley Lyerla at their Milroy home.(Photo: David Woods/IndyStar)

“The inspiration that he provides in the community just from doing what he does . . . I have a lot of clients who say, ‘If he can do that, I have no room to complain about anything that’s difficult for me,’ “ Badgley said. “He struggles a little bit with seeing himself as an inspirational person, but he definitely is.

“He inspires me. I consider it an honor to work with him.”

Such talk makes Lyerla a little uneasy. He is medically retired and enjoys reading and video games. He and his wife are planning for children. He has heard the horror stories about the Veterans Administration but said that has not been his experience.

Hero? Not him, he said.

“There’s way more people that do way more crazy stuff, saving their buddies, dragging people out of gunfire,” Lyerla said. “The guy that saved my life, I consider him a hero. The medic that saves all the people’s lives, he’s a hero because we’re all alive because of him. I’m just a dude who got hit with a bomb.”

A dude who makes a list of 10 ways in which he can improve fitness and posts it by the TV in his man cave. The ramp leading into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is “wicked big,” he said, and the hardest part of the Mini course.

Having his trainer along to run interference helps Lyerla maintain momentum. He does the rest.